Rust And Bone- review

Directed and written by Jacques Audiard,Rsut and Bone is about a weird relationship between Stephanie(Marion Cotillard),a whale trainer and a self trained boxer Ali(Matthias Schoenaerts)  who is currently unemployed.

After losing her legs in a gruesome accident,Stephanie is feeling depressed and worthless.Her friendship with the tough self absorbed, rough but straightforward  boxer Ali who is also at his lowest point starts to rejuvenate her spirits and improve her life.Ali himself is not perfect.He keeps pushing away everyone who wants to love him.The only person allowed in his life is his son however the nature of their relationship is more of friends or big brother rather than father son.

As for the screenplay,I do find it to be a bit slow.There were many unnecessary parts in this film rather than just focusing on the relationship between Ali and Stephanie and his life with his naive(mentally unstable?) son.For example the robbing scenes.While the elongated scenes worked in Armour,it doesn't work here.The visuals effects looks good and I am amazed at how authentic those scenes with the amputated legs looks like.Brilliant!

Its the performance from the cast that helps to elevate the film.Marion Cotillard beautifully depicts the lows of Stephanie.Its a tough role with physical and metal challenges and Cotillard nails all the emotional scenes with the right amount of vulnerability as the character Stephanie is 'broken' but  is still in denial.One of my favourite scenes of Cotillard would be the scene where Stephanie wants to use the bathroom but unable to do so as she cant reach the bathroom.Not wanting to ask help from Ali,she decides to crawl to the bathroom but only to be discovered by Ali.Another  scene would be when Stephanie decides to return to whale training and communicates to the whale with her hands.These scenes could easily turn into cliched scenes but Jacques Audiard's direction manages to steer from it.While Cotillard is great as usual,I found the star of this film is the Belgium actor Matthias Scoenaerts.His masculine form with his rough body language suits the role perfectly.His character Ali,is a one dimensional character but Matthias's portrayal of the gentle giant is convincing and makes the viewer to root for him even though he is very flawed.Though he should try avoiding these kind of roles to prevent getting stereotyped.

Overall,Rust and Bone is a weak film carried by the strong performances by the leads.

B